Sunset Glow over a Fishing Village, from Eight Views of Xiao-Xiang (1460s–1550s): Art, History and Details

Sunset Glow over a Fishing Village, from Eight Views of Xiao-Xiang (1460s–1550s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Sesshū Tōyō (Japanese, 1420–1506).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This painting and CMA 2015.589 belong to a group that was likely mounted as a pair of four-panel folding screens focusing on the Eight Views of Xiao-Xiang, a theme centered on an area in southern China. This one represents the motif “Sunset Glow Over a Fishing Village.” Both emulate the style of Chinese painter Li Tang (about 1050–after 1130). Some scholars believe the paintings are the work of Sesshū Tōyō (1420–1506), the only Japanese painter of his day to have traveled to China.

Object facts

• Title: Sunset Glow over a Fishing Village, from Eight Views of Xiao-Xiang
• Date: 1460s–1550s
• Creator attribution: Sesshū Tōyō (Japanese, 1420–1506)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Hanging scroll from a set of eight; ink and color on silk
• Dimensions: Painting: 143.7 x 72.5 cm (56 9/16 x 28 9/16 in.); Mounted: 250.8 x 90.1 cm (98 3/4 x 35 1/2 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 2015.590

A detail from the museum

This painting incited robust scholarly debate in both Japan and the United States about its date.

Collection credit

Gift from the Collection of George Gund III

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cunningham, Michael R., Shinʼichi Miyajima, and Yūji Yamashita. Ink Paintings and Ash-Glazed Ceramics: Medieval Calligraphy, Painting, and Ceramic Art from Japan and Korea. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000.
• Sesshū: botsugo 500-nen tokubetsuten [雪舟 : 没後 500年特别展 = Sesshu, master of ink and brush: 500th anniversary exhibition]. Tokyo: Maihichi Shimbun, 2002.
• Longhi, Leighton R. Leighton R. Longhi: Forty-Five Years in Asian Art. [New York, N.Y.]: Leighton R. Longhi, 2019.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.